Terra Incognita disambiguated

Well here we are at the end of October, post-visitors, post-election and we’re still standing, though speeding towards 2015 at a rate that appears to defy the laws of space-time. So far, it’s been a terrific year, made glorious by its general uneventfulness. As one gets older, events (defined here as things that happen to you) tend to become increasingly more likely to be of the negative variety, so one can revel in any prolonged length of time where such things are absent.

As usual, we prepared for the worst and hoped for the best. We treated the approaching election (the first since a military coup in 2006) a bit like a strengthening tropical depression. We bought a couple of cases of drinking water, stocked up on gin, tonic, chocolate and cat food and kept a weather eye on the media. We dedicated a bit of time to pondering the implications of newspaper headlines like “Suva will not burn! Says PM” and the inevitable racist and misogynistic vitriol that surfaced occasionally on social media.

It was heartening to see the people of Fiji take their democratic duty to heart. The day came (it was declared a much-needed public holiday) and, besides a cracking combined neighbourhood birthday and election party, it was uneventful. The Fijian electorate (now all sporting fingers dyed deep purple) elected the sitting government who now are the majority party in a resurrected parliament. One is full of hope for this nascent democracy – it’s hard to imagine that, if things stay on track, the country will not be a completely different (and better) place in ten years’ time.

In the run up to the election, we had a series of overlapping visitors which gave us a great excuse to revisit some resorts close to Suva and try out some new ones. I will now describe them in 60 seconds without hesitation, repetition or deviation:

Leleuvia Island Resort. An old favourite – small island with lovely sandy beach. Has changed target market from backpackers to families in the time we've been in Fiji.

Reef off of Leleuvia. You have to look carefully to spot these little guys (nudibranchs).

Upside: Fantastic snorkeling if you know where to go, paddleboards, lovely bar, friendly staff and relatively easy to get to from Suva. On Saturday nights they serve the best lovo in Fiji.

Downside: Can be unpleasantly hot at night once ceiling fans go off. I’m going off having to put up with communal toilets and showers (though now some of the showers have hot water). There are probably too many children if you’re looking for a quiet holiday – particularly over long weekends when expats descend on the place with their families. Besides breakfast (which is wonderful), there’s no real choice at mealtimes.

Beqa Lagoon Resort. This is a new favourite for weekend getaways. It’s mainly a dive resort but it caters to non-divers too.

Beqa House reef. Who knew that worms could be so beautiful?

Upsides: Easy to get to – it’s a 25 minute boat ride from Pacific Harbour. The en-suite bures are lovely with 24 hour power, which means that you can have cool, mosquito-free nights. The house reef is impressive with good coral cover and loads to see – white tips, scorpion fish, octopus, lion fish were all there just off the beach. The free poolside foot massage with Pure Fiji products was a clincher.

Downside: Bearing in mind that Fiji is currently under drought conditions, the pool needs a serious clean and they need to figure out some way to aerate the koi pond.

Wellesley Resort. This was briefly my new favourite before we went to Beqa.

Giant clam on the reef off of Wellesley. I never get tired of seeing these things.

Upside: As it’s on the Coral Coast, you don’t have to catch a boat to get there. This means that anyone in your party that can’t guarantee that they can get away early on a Friday doesn't have to wait until Saturday morning to join you. The accommodation is very comfortable (with air conditioning). A little bar opens on the beach for happy hour. The grounds are beautifully landscaped.

Downside: The way the grounds are laid out, you can be quite a way from the beach. The Coral Coast is often unpleasantly windy. This was the case when we were there. However, the pool was protected from the wind and was lovely to hang out next to.

Naigani Island Resort (Tau Resort). Imagine if a Fijian resort was run by Basil Fawlty. As I write this post, I am sitting on this lovely island wondering how to adequately describe it. Quirky might be the right word, but the magnitude of quirkiness really is too great not to be completely exasperating.

Naigani Island. Water quality wasn't great that day, but the coral cover was.

Upside: Naigani is a beautiful island with stunning reefs and great kayaking. The accommodation is spacious – more like houses than bures with ensuite loos and hot showers. There is a nice pool (with a little water slide), a little golf course and a covered area near the pool (which is currently being refurbished) for hanging out in out of the sun/rain.

Downside: The management. We received confusing instructions about where to catch the boat (currently QVS beach while Natovi Jetty is refurbished) but still arrived in time to catch it. The boat was not there. The fishermen at the beach didn't know what we were talking about. We rang all the available numbers for the resort and no one picked up. We emailed. No one replied. After 50 minutes (and 15 more phone calls, none of which were answered) the boat finally showed up. We had to wade through seriously filthy water that smelled of sewage to get to the boat.

The management seemed surprised that a couple that was supposed to be on the same boat as us hadn't shown up. I, on the other hand, am surprised that anyone actually ever makes it here.

Then the same thing happened to my other half when he tried to get over the next day. This is not “Fiji Time”- it’s downright rudeness.

On arrival at the resort, we were assured that we don’t need to lock our accommodation as it’s so safe here. However, when the manager went off island for five hours during the afternoon, he locked up the bar and took the key. This dry spell coincided with the generator being off, so not only couldn't we get a soft drink or a beer, we couldn't even boil the kettle to make a cup of tea (and I’m here with three English people so this is a calamity). Thank goodness we’d had the presence of mind to pack for all eventualities (plan for the worst, hope for the best again) and we’d brought over emergency alcohol supplies.

There are a lot of pluses to this place, but I’m not going to be coming back in a hurry.

No matter where you go here, if you have a food allergy, you have to be absolutely sure that all of the relevant staff knows about your allergy. At each one of the resorts above (with the exception of the Wellesley), I have been served eggplant despite telling the staff that I’m allergic to it. At one resort, when I pointed out that there was eggplant in the pasta dish I’d been served even though the waitress had assured me that there wasn't when she put it down in front of me, I was told “You asked if there was eggplant in the pasta. There isn't. It’s in the sauce”. Silly me. God help you if you have an allergy to something that isn't large and purple with distinctive texture and seeds that can be spotted a mile off.

I’m sometimes surprised by the Tripadvisor ratings given to some of the resorts here. I suspect the ratings actually measure how much fun people had on their vacation rather than giving a reliable measure of the resort and its facilities. But really, isn't that the point?


As usual - all photo credits to my talented other half...

My new favourite expression

How could I not have heard the term FoMO (Fear of Missing Out)? I know the FoMO concept intimately, having suffered from it my entire life. It explains quite a lot of my behavioural quirks, like wandering around the house while brushing my teeth in case something else more interesting is going on or appearing at breakfast when we have houseguests, half dressed with wet hair, lest I miss a bit of news that my family members with certainly neglect to tell me later.

Being a FoMOist has its upsides. It’s what allows you to chivvy your companions along while walking around strange cities as you search for a restaurant better than the one you are standing in front of, which means occasionally you stumble on a real gem. It’s what gives you the curiosity to try every strange fruit that you come across in the market despite the fact that, up until you tried a mangosteen two days ago, you haven’t tasted a delicious new fruit since you tried a kiwifruit in 1978. It’s what makes you appear adventurous when what you really are is a perennial worrier, wondering if something bigger, better or more interesting is just out of sight around the theoretical corner.

Strange fruit – mangosteen, where have you been all of my life?

However, I suspect many FoMOists are paralysed with indecision because for every positive decision they make, there are the infinite possibilities that they’ve excluded by making that decision. This is typically demonstrated at restaurants, where FoMOists have a difficult time ordering from a large menu (“if I have the Caesar salad, which I love, I won’t be able to try the flambéed frogs’ legs, which might be delicious!”).

Of course, indecision impacts on bigger life events. For example, if you decide to be a fireman, you have passively decided not to be a butcher, a baker or a brain surgeon among other things. Therefore, I suspect most FoMOists let their lives play out, occasionally making some inexplicable (to themselves and to their friends) monumental decision based on nothing more than the fear that there might be something on the other side of that decision than is more exhilarating than where they happen to be standing at the moment of decision-making. That’s my excuse anyway.

Mind you, there was little opportunity for FoMO on mine and Anna’s recent trip to California because our days were absolutely packed with great things. Alex joined us from the UK and we saw every brother, sister, niece, nephew, brother- and sister-in-law on my side of the family. I also managed to see some of my very oldest friends from my early childhood who had the decency to still look young. Alex and Anna experienced their first US 4th of July (not a particularly popular holiday in the UK), we saw the awesome San Jose Earthquakes-LA Galaxy match at Stanford Stadium, picked berries in Santa Ynez, squeezed in three family birthday parties and went to the beach as many times as possible.

While we were stuffing in as much California culture as we could, John was back in Fiji running the Pacific Science Association Conference and looking after the four kittens that were delivered to our living room by a little stray that we’d been feeding. The conference was a success and the kittens well-adjusted enough to place in good homes. And yes, I do tell John he’s a hero at least a couple of times a week.

The kittens were replaced by the same number of toads soon after they were re-homed.

Back in Fiji, our UK next door neighbours came to visit on their round-the-world adventure. They embraced the Fijian experience whole-heartedly (despite it being so chilly that I had to don a fleece several times), going rafting on the Navua River, walking along the sea wall into Suva for a day’s sight-seeing, going off the rope swing at Colo-i-Suva and learning (and using) basic Fijian words. Their boys are going to be spoiled for life as on their second snorkel off of Naigani, we saw a white-tipped shark, a Ridley’s turtle as well as amazing coral cover. Seriously, there will be no point in them visiting the Caribbean now. On their last night here, we went to our usual, The Bad Dog, to toast them bon voyage with colourful cocktails/mocktails with them in their full bula regalia.

It’s times like that I can ignore my FoMO tendencies because I’m sure that if I were able to peek around the theoretical corner, my little piece of the world would be better than anything I might see on the other side.